Any new info on S03 error?

I've searched around for posts on the infamous S03 error but haven't found anything that really points out how they come about. I'm asking because I just picked up a lifetimed TCD540 cheap where the owner had the error, got a pre-imaged replacement drive, and then got the error again within 3 months. I verified the error when I first got the box, pulled the drive and ran the WD long test (passed), then re-imaged the drive. After that it worked fine but who knows for how long. I also checked the caps in the power supply and they look ok. Is there some sequence of events that can corrupt the database on an otherwise good drive during daily downloads?

Not sure if it works on a S2, but if so have you tried a kickstart 57?

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No, I didn't. That might have been an interesting experiment. When I ran MFSINFO in WinMFS I did see that the partition map was different than what I normally expect before I re-imaged it. It had a small (3MB) Apple Free partition at the end. Should have saved a snapshot of that for comparison.

Instead of mentioning anything about KickStarts, texasblindjack.com says to cure it by running "Clear program information & To Do List", but they don't offer any insight on how it happens in the first place.

Although it sat there for about 3 hours saying it was doing it and it would take about an hour, so eventually I shut off power, waited a bit, and fired it up again, and it went back to that same screen but eventually finished whatever it was doing.

Instead of mentioning anything about KickStarts, texasblindjack.com says to cure it by running "Clear program information & To Do List", but they don't offer any insight on how it happens in the first place.

Although it sat there for about 3 hours saying it was doing it and it would take about an hour, so eventually I shut off power, waited a bit, and fired it up again, and it went back to that same screen but eventually finished whatever it was doing.

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I had seen that procedure when I was doing a search on the topic. Since the box was new to me and I needed to run Guided Setup anyway, I just used your image and started fresh. I had downloaded the image a few months ago when someone else asked for it.

Instead of mentioning anything about KickStarts, texasblindjack.com says to cure it by running "Clear program information & To Do List", but they don't offer any insight on how it happens in the first place.

Although it sat there for about 3 hours saying it was doing it and it would take about an hour, so eventually I shut off power, waited a bit, and fired it up again, and it went back to that same screen but eventually finished whatever it was doing.

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My absolute guess is that it seems to have too much data to load into the space that is available for the guide data. It seems to happen to boxes that have a lot of channels on them (like Dish and Directv).

My absolute guess is that it seems to have too much data to load into the space that is available for the guide data. It seems to happen to boxes that have a lot of channels on them (like Dish and Directv).

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Considering that TiVo probably didn't plan on 9 million satellite channels, with a constant reshuffling of the deck, that sounds like a very well founded guess.

My absolute guess is that it seems to have too much data to load into the space that is available for the guide data. It seems to happen to boxes that have a lot of channels on them (like Dish and Directv).

Series 2s don't use TAs, so probably not. As to corruption it's anyone's guess. Poor WiFi would be my first choice since I have never had an S03 error in more than 10 years of running my TiVos hard-wired.

I've only been Tivoing for a couple of years but have had a dozen different boxes in that time. I use wireless bridges almost exclusively and haven't seen an issue - except with S1 boxes. The two S1 boxes had Turbonet cards but they would act pretty much the same whether I had them hardwired, on a wireless bridge, or using serial PPP. The good thing is that I never saw an S03 error on the S1's and eventually, usually after several tries, they would successfully load the data.

Series 2s don't use TAs, so probably not. As to corruption it's anyone's guess. Poor WiFi would be my first choice since I have never had an S03 error in more than 10 years of running my TiVos hard-wired.

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Turn off your box for several months and you'll have this happen to you too. I've had this happen with a hard wired connection. I don't think it has anything to do with corrupted data. I think it had more to do with the amount of data being loaded and how much had changed.

Heck, maybe it even has to do with channels that are removed and have been removed for some time. Maybe that's what is causing the issue. Without TiVo to tell us what the problem really is. Then it's really anyones guess at this point.

Turn off your box for several months and you'll have this happen to you too. I've had this happen with a hard wired connection. I don't think it has anything to do with corrupted data. I think it had more to do with the amount of data being loaded and how much had changed.
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I doubt that is the issue given that the box has to load a complete set of data if you re-image the drive and run Guided Setup. I do that every time I get a used box. The only difference between that and turning the box off for several months would be if you didn't do a C&DE after you turned the box back on and before you connected to the mothership. Then the new data might corrupt the old data if it didn't do a blanket overwrite.

I doubt that is the issue given that the box has to load a complete set of data if you re-image the drive and run Guided Setup. I do that every time I get a used box. The only difference between that and turning the box off for several months would be if you didn't do a C&DE after you turned the box back on and before you connected to the mothership. Then the new data might corrupt the old data if it didn't do a blanket overwrite.

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Exactly, it's likely loading some deltas and is getting confused. I'll still bet it has something to do with channels that get deleted and when those try to get loaded from the mothership onto a box that has the channel listed as valid... then bam.... it don't work.

Exactly, it's likely loading some deltas and is getting confused. I'll still bet it has something to do with channels that get deleted and when those try to get loaded from the mothership onto a box that has the channel listed as valid... then bam.... it don't work.

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And since cable channels change occasionally and satellite lineups get shuffled every few days, people with sat receivers hooked to their TiVos, or those of us who lied during GS so we could tune to channel 1 and get what we've got hooked to our line ins, it happens more often with them.

I started getting the S03 error about a year and a half ago and NONE of these suggestions worked. My drive is perfectly fine not dying like so many of these searches would have you believe. I always ended up have to clear and delete everything about every 2 months. VERY annoying. The official TiVo site hxxp://support.tivo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/567/kw/S03/session/L3NpZC9lKnhTMlE2bA%3D%3D has a fix. You have to disconnect your internet access to the TiVo box for 2 or more days. I did 3 days. It gives it time to do it's garbage collection. After the 3 days, re-connect... it takes hours to reload the new guide data and then restart. This will probably last for 2 months, then repeat. Recorded show, Season Passes are still as they were. I have a TiVo HD XL Series 3 with a Motorola SDV box and Multi-CableCard from Time Warner.
Hope this helps!!

This happened to me. Tivo support said it was a hard drive, they were wrong. Cloned hard drive to a known good drive, same problem. After many called to support a good tech told me that the data base needed to be rebuilt and the way I could do that was to unplug my network connection for 72 hours on my series 2 and that would cause the data base to rebuild itself. It worked.